Blog Archives

TIME AND SHOWING UP

6/28/2013

“Time and showing up turn most messes into compost, and then something surprising grows.” Ann Lamott

Compost takes a while to do it’s beneficial work. It takes time for garbage to turn into something nourishing. And there’s usually some worms in there.

So it is with our life messes.

Chances are we didn’t intend to make a mess, and are probably surprised when things turned out that way. But how do we handle them?

Do we run away and hope it will all take care of itself? Or do we blame someone else? Or ourselves?

And how’s that been working? If it hasn’t, maybe its time to try a new approach.

How about sitting with the mess and reflecting upon what is going on?

That stings, doesn’t it?

However, I recommend it strongly as a way into a new and more loving relationship with our lives.

When we get honest with ourselves I think we will find worry and fear at the bottom of each of our unpleasant situations. Worry and fear are not loving.

Being present to these unpleasant emotions will probably cause us to feel pain, sadness, embarrassment and confusion.

It’s hard to sit with this stuff!

But will we show up? And keep showing up? Without blaming ourselves or anyone else? Or at least notice when we are into blame? And sit with that, too?

Can we bear looking at what motivates us? Our beliefs and feelings?

Are we willing to hold the tension between what is hurtful and the blessing we desire? Or do we give up and just go with the flow. Whatever seems easier?

Can we stay open to even that?

Are we willing to keep the dialogue going between what the good we desire and the pain that is our present experience, no matter how long it takes?

How are we using our time? How are we showing up?

What is our PQ? Our patience quotient? Or persistence quotient?

“First the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.” Mark 4:28

Patience and persistence are required if we desire a different outcome, a healing. The universe is always weaving everything together for greater wholeness. This is the nature of life. Life demands that everything be included. Nothing is left out.

The universe knows how to compost messes.

Keep on, my friend. Inquire into those messy situations. Reflect upon them. Meditate upon them. Journal. Pray. Let them simmer on the back burner.

Don’t rush whatever forgiveness is needed. It has to grow inside. Forgiveness happens as we break open and become vulnerable to the universal energy of light and love.

Just stay willing to allow forgiveness to take root in our hearts. The energy of love will do the rest. We’re all in this together. None of us is alone.

Life calls us to this holy work. Life is patient and persevering. And it is always birthing something new.

And I’m willing to bet it will be a surprise and delight, however long it takes!

-Rev. Billie

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IT’S ALL ON LOAN

6/25/2013

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Everything we have is “on loan” from the universe. Nothing is ours to keep. It’s all universal energy. It’s all God.

Fortunately God is not a loan shark. But God does require our interest—our interest in what matters most— our soul work. The universe certainly seems bent on evolving, and greatly desires our cooperation. The universe needs our love.

God does not force, but patiently waits until we willingly give of ourselves to this great work. In the meantime we can pretend we have ownership of all the physical stuff, and worry about managing it, but it’s just a game we play.

Charles Fillmore, co-founder of Unity, has said that we own nothing except the use of our I AM nature. The I Am is another name for God.

The I AM is always ours. No one can ever take it from us, for it is the nature of God that we are. It will never leave us.

The I AM is truly ours, and everything else is on loan. How we relate to this great presence makes all the difference.

The “I” is a symbol for our ego, our sense of our identity, through which we make choices.

Even though nothing physical is ours to keep, and all will be required back at some time, what is important is how we relate to the substance that is ours to manage. This includes all matter — including our bodies.

How tight do we hold on? Do we squeeze the life out of it, or are we living with generosity and open-heartedness and trust in universal love?

The “I” within us is our choicemaker. Through this “I”, our egos, we literally are shaping and forming God substance with each thought, word and deed. But we don’t own it.

Evolution seeks our cooperation and here is our power, helping love to express. Love doesn’t force.

Each morning I do my best to ask God to reveal to me what is mine to do. Then I listen as deeply as possible. I try to give attention to what is arising in my mind.

Am I cooperating with universal energy, or am I whining over what doesn’t suit me?

I often dialogue with God in my journal about these matters, about what I’m thinking and feeling. I carefully listen to God’s answers. They are very informative.

As I make this my daily practice, I find a subtle guidance system that gives me clues. Sometimes I follow them; sometimes I don’t do so well. I often find I haven’t listened as closely as I needed to. Too much internal noise.

Sometimes I wonder whose voice I’m hearing, but I do my best to take the steps I’m guided to take and ask God to correct my course when it’s off.

I continue to remember that I own nothing. Everything is on loan, and all that is required is for me to choose the love and beauty of God over and over and over.

What matters is the way I use the energy that is mine to use, not the stuff I can accumulate!

And this is enough. It is more than sufficient. Thank you, God!

-Rev. Billie

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TRUE PROSPERITY

6/18/2013

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“Wealth and abundance flow into our lives to the extent that we embrace challenges and adapt to changes.”

The Tao Oracle

True prosperity is being present for what arises each minute. There is always enough in the present moment. But we need to develop attentiveness to what is, rather than what we fear is missing.

The flow of the Tao is always here, and it is always sufficient. It is enough. God energy has been flowing freely on this planet for 14 Billion years now, and it is still evolving. It’s universal energy – the very energy of love.

The universe includes you in all its wealth and resources. You are not left out. You live within this amazing 14 billion years of grace.

As you meet the challenge of this minute by paying attention to what is, wealth will flow to you. And as you generously share all that comes to you, and stay present to reality, to what is, prosperity will continue.

Miserliness freezes the energy and it gets stuck. Fear creates miserly patterns. Become aware of your fears—your constricted energy. Let fear breathe out from you. Let it out! And welcome the new breath that is love-filled. Every breath offers a new choice.

In this moment what challenge is asking for your embrace? You are God’s creation and have so much to be, to express and to share, for you are God’s evolutionary hero.

You have the ability to give your attention to the present challenge and ask God to reveal answers for the best way to meet it.

The creation of wealth is an art. Your life is an art, much more than a science.

So right now, use your skill of gratitude and your inner courage to honestly look your challenges in the eye. Do they feel familiar?

The past will always seek healing. It won’t let go until it is integrated.

The past will stay present until the present enters the past.

Wounds are never secret. Secrets are shouted on the rooftops, as Jesus says.

A journal is a great place for old wounds. Let the past come into your heart and mind for healing and resolution. Write it out. Breathe it out.

Can you pour your heart and everything it holds onto the pages of your journal? Answers will flow in due season.

Patience is required in any art. Write whatever comes. It doesn’t have to make sense. Spirit will sort it all out.

Insights arise in the empty space of our minds. Nature abhors a vacuum. Trust the silence.

The universe is love. God is love. Love is the energy that forms into substance. (Refer to Teilhard’s Phenomenon of Man in suggested reading list on my website for his scientific theory of this amazing fact.)

Love is pouring into the breath you are breathing. Love shows you the way.

All you are asked to do is to be aware, be present. This moment is not the same as the last. Try not to make it the same by thinking the same woebegone thoughts. Instead look at this moment with the eyes of a child. What needs healing? What might it become? What does love desire to do?

Let the mystery of God’s love lead you into your true prosperity.

Jesus said he came that we might have abundance, have life. It’s yours. It’s the gift of the universe that is loving and including you right now. It’s sufficient!

True prosperity is yours, always has been. It’s within you and all around you.

-Rev. Billie

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WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH YOUR ONE PRECIOUS LIFE?

6/12/2013

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The Dalai Lama asks: “Being born is a miracle. Now what are you going to do with your life?”

A very important question!

What are you doing with your precious life?

Do you have a plan? Is it your plan — or God’s plan?

If it’s your plan, it may just fall a little short, and you may be disappointed.

And if you desire to live out God’s plan, how are you presently going about it?

Each of us is a Holy Idea that God has created. That is what the term, the Christ, really means. It is a description of our own God pattern of energy. It is God’s idea within us, as us.

God’s ideas are purposeful, always. They may seem unclear to us, but universal energy doesn’t mess around. It will fulfill its purpose, one way or another. And we are all a part of that Holy purpose. Let’s assume it is whole and complete, ‘cuz how could it be otherwise if it is of God?

Have you touched into God’s Holy purpose within you? Where does your interest go? Where your interest goes, the energy flows.

Is your daily agenda primary in your life, and God gets the leftovers?

Or have you made a commitment to fulfill God’s purpose for you?

If so, how do you ask for God’s ideas to be revealed?

What makes you feel authentic? What inspires you? What juices you?

If these questions seem foreign perhaps taking a real interest in who you are would be the first step.

In order to find your authenticity you must know yourself. Are you in a daily process of questioning your motives, your feelings, your thoughts and your actions? Of digging deep inside your soul?

We never know just what we are capable of and how we can stretch our limits until we delve deeply into the secrets of our souls.

Meditation, journaling and study of spiritual materials lead us into those secret places in our heart. The 91st Psalm speaks of finding our way into The Secret Place of the Most High. It’s calling us!

We have all had mishaps and obstacles on our path. It’s all part of the miracle. It’s God, helping us accomplish our purpose. Everything plays a part, even, and most especially the failures.

Let us learn to say, “And this, too” to everything that happens.

It’s not so much what happens to us, but how we handle the events and circumstances that occur.

Our fate and our destiny are always intersecting. Our fate is the result of all our past actions. It’s karma.

Our destiny, however, grows out of the choices we make now, this moment. Will we go to God first, and be willing to love? Will we care about our own needs as well as the needs of the others?

Will we spend the time and energy to discover what drives us? Our inner motivations? What or who is yanking our chain?

You are a miracle. God does not waste miracles. You are, right now, being guided into a beautiful future. You can make a choice to pay attention!

If we aren’t paying attention, God will get it some way, for the universe is evolving. We sometimes stumble into our good. Or back into it. Everything belongs.

This is Holy work. Life is a spiritual journey and you are a hero on the path.

The hero’s journey is always a descent. And you can’t control it. And you don’t need to. Here is the beginning place — the very breath you are breathing right now. This moment is a new beginning.

Trust the One Who is in charge. It’s God, and God loves you so dearly!

And do have a good day!

Rev. Billie

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TIME FOR SPIRITUAL RENEWAL

6/9/2013

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Written on a wall of Plum Village are these words by Thich Nhat Hahn:

Stopping,
Calming and
Resting

Are preconditions for healing.

Do you feel the need for healing? For space and time for your soul to blossom, to experience wholeness?

Sometimes we fill our summer with so much busyness that we don’t take breathers that refresh and heal the soul and body. I call these time Spiritbreathers.

Stopping, calming and resting are necessary for soul growth. Dedication and intention are required to receive inner guidance.

If this resonates with you, consider attending the one day Silent Retreat that I am leading on Saturday July 27, 2013. Registration information can be found on my website:

www.centerforevolvingspirit.com

If this time or place won’t work for you, I urge you to seek out a special spiritual renewal for you. There are many opportunities.

Nothing is as important in your life as following Spirit’s direction.

Your way, or God’s way? That is the big question.

Take a few moments often, everyday, to rest in the Spirit, to empty yourself of the burden of your own thoughts.

I suggest occasionally taking an entire day, or week, for this Holy work.

You are worth it. God has created you and is sustaining you.

There is something that is for you more than you are for yourself.

Experience this by practicing stillness. Don’t take my word for it.

Ask the important questions. Connect with God. And deeply listen.

Enjoy this beautiful summer by making God absolutely pivotal in your life. The rewards are magnificent!

-Rev. Billie

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WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU FEEL EMPTY

6/7/2013

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Where do you go when there seems to be nothing to turn to? At least nothing that brings you satisfaction – nothing that quells that inner voice that questions your happiness and your capability.

Will things never go right?

Are you good enough? Ever?

Do these questions plague you sometimes? They certainly do me.

And when you ask the questions, where do you go for answers?

I do my best to follow this sage advice: Go to God first, and then to people as God directs.

A journal is very useful for going to God for help during these stressful times. In my journal I pour out all my angst. Just in doing this I begin to find a sense of release. Some kind of connection is beginning.

My journal can hold my heart.

I don’t necessarily find answers — at least not right away. And sometimes I do. They just pop right up.

What I notice is that after I have let my worries, beliefs and thoughts flow out onto the pages, I feel more spacious. There’s now more room for answers. I’m not so tied to a certain view, a one-sided approach.

Then dialogue begins. I place God’s name in the margin, and open my soul to being the God that has created everything. That’s a big space to occupy! It takes imagination. But that is what life is about.

Then I just write whatever comes. I find myself being surprised, but not always pleased by the answers.

Yet, there is more space in my mind.

Spaciousness can be very wonderful. It also can be interpreted at emptiness.

Will I let this space be filled with my next thoughts, my interpretations?

Or will I just let it lie there empty?

I find that when I let the emptiness be, something unbidden seeps into my consciousness.

This means waiting.

While I wait I return to the awareness of the simple breath that is breathing me. Somehow it leads me into a deeper place, where new things develop. Conscious breathing does that.

As I let the breath be my focus, I wait and see what comes up.

As Dr. Ira Progoff says: There is no substitute for waiting.

Amazing things can happen here. When I don’t try to fill the emptiness with all my addictions, the ways I have used to stay in my comfort zone, something new can be birthed.

The new always comes from the deep.

I write down whatever comes. This is a continuing dialogue. God and me. Connecting.

I then use the ideas that come, integrating them into my life. And I feel the joy of knowing I’m being guided. Wisdom comes as I listen deeply, as I persevere, waiting on God.

I recommend trying this. Unless you have a better idea!

God waits for us all, so patiently. That’s what the empty space is for.

Let God fill it. Trust.

~Rev. Billie

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A DEEPER GRATITUDE

6/2/2013

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What does gratitude mean to you?

I recently attended a lecture given by Stephen Jenkinson, the Griefwalker, who gave me a new insight into gratitude.

He said that gratitude is being grateful when you can’t personally benefit from it. Thus, real gratitude means being grateful for what happens even when it brings you no personal reward.

Even in instances when something good happens to those whom we have just this little grudge toward. Gratitude may not be our first emotion, but let’s consider it as a possibility. There is always a larger picture.

Real gratitude is opening to a wider love even when it hurts—trusting that something good is taking place even though we can’t see it, because it doesn’t seem to be happening to us!

A quote I heard long ago says it well: “The incoming tide causes all ships to rise.” Anon.

For things are not what they appear. Something good is in process, no matter how bleak it may seem at the moment.

So instead of feeling resentful, or perhaps feeling sorry for oneself, we have the option of opening our hearts to the possibility that all things are working toward good, and be grateful that we are feeling beings who have the capacity to experience life deeply. Just be grateful for that!

Jesus reminds us that the rain falls upon the just and the unjust, as God’s love is unconditional.

Oh how rich and big our world is. There is always something to be grateful for, and it isn’t just the things we declare to be good.

Life is bringing us into greater consciousness and will use any means to do so. Whatever has to be jettisoned must go — for the new is on the way. We are here to grow spiritually — to widen our hearts to include everything.

And this too! Or as Richard Rohr says, “Everything belongs.”

There is a place for every happening and every feeling.

God shows us the way. And that is a lot to be grateful for!

We are spirit evolving, becoming. “Judge not by appearances.”

God breathes us. It’s taking place now. This is a real direct experience of love — God’s love. This breath is given freely to us, no matter what we are thinking, or doing.

Grace is here in this breath. Love is here. New ideas are here.

It may be dark yet, but the dawn will come. Let’s just be grateful!

Maybe the incoming tide is God breathing us all, causing everyone to rise.

-Rev. Billie

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